The Inheritance Games train keeps on going, and I’ve read every single one that’s been released so far… Plus a few other Jennifer Lynn-Barnes books, so let’s have a look at the wins and losses.

The Inheritance Games

Interesting puzzles. Fun characters. Solid writing style.
Characters certainly hit the buzz words/characteristics – independent “don’tneedaman” women, “diversity” “broodingandsensitive” and “imamazingbutdontrealisetheyallcareforme”

A *personal* dislike was the few mentions every so often of new age references.

The Hawthorne Legacy

Intriguing puzzles and more complex personal dynamics than ever before.
It’s been a while since I had read book 1, but I picked up where I left off pretty well. Short and sharp chapters, clever and always keeping you guessing.

The Final Gambit

Great conclusion to the trilogy.
I wasn’t sure where some of the loose ends would wrap up, and if you can keep track of all the families and all the varying puzzles then it does weave together quite well.
As always, the game was afoot and it was great with twists I didn’t see, and some I did. The journey was fun.

The Brothers Hawthorne

Interesting puzzles, and two concurrent stories to follow. New mysteries open and others come to a close. I liked the flow, and it was a nice change of pace to see the boys POV instead of Avery this time.

The Grandest Game

Interesting puzzles, but only small amounts of character reveals actually came through. Major cliff hanger so if you want answers you need to read another book. The few answers we got are unsatisfying as they’re only half the picture and it’s agitating that I have to wait for a new book to get rather large answers to questions – include the rest of the game.
Some cliff hangers are fine, but the story is literally on pause and I am frustrated.
I liked what we got of the game, great puzzles as always. Characters are interesting and basically secondary background characters getting their own focus – which was awesome.

Glorious Rivals

I had basically forgotten everything that happened before this, so I was coming into it with almost no knowledge of what had already happened in the first part of the story. I am getting a little bit of fatigue reading these characters and the storyline, however for some reason I still bought the book. It was pretty good, The mystery and challenges took a backseat to the drama and interpersonal issues at play. I prefer the mysteries and the puzzles, so that was not necessarily the most preferable plot line that I was looking for. Having said that, I thought that things went pretty well, characters made sense and were pretty consistent. What people went through in the story made sense, and I understand what we were going for.
Things are starting to feel a bit more convoluted than they used to, and even though they were complex and interpersonal mysteries mixed in with the puzzles in the first trilogy of this world, this one is starting to feel a bit flat. Things are so complex, intertwined so much with the first few books, and now with all this new information, that it’s almost impossible to try and keep track. I would have to have a pin board with strings tied to everything and going in different directions like a crazy person just to try and keep everything sorted in my brain. However, even with that, I managed to skip past some of those things and just enjoy the surface level of the story.

Games Untold

Mixed short stories following the characters we know from the inheritance games. Some were good, some were really interesting, and some only so so. A short story book is always a little challenging to review, because there are so many variables. But I will say, though, I did enjoy seeing the characters again and filling in some of the blanks that the main books didn’t flesh out.
Stories I really enjoyed was Hannah and Toby, I also love Xander. He is such a fun character. Nash is actually my favourite after this short story, I really wish we had more Nash in the main series because he is such a funny character.
Fun and really just for fans to get another little look into the characters that they like.

The Ruling Class

Pretty interesting look into the political “fixer” world in a side door kind of way.
I liked the parallels with the high school version and real world version. Some very serious things going on with real world consequences, as well as personal dynamics going on.

Lessons In Power

Second book was a lot more exciting than the first. I actually enjoyed it a lot more, the steaks were higher, it was a lot more interesting to see unfold, the characters felt like they had more at stake even though you could debate that.
The emotional beats hit harder, the mystery was way more interesting, and I just overall liked it better.

Little White Lies

This book was so utterly boring and forgettable which was quite confusing because normally I like this author. I don’t know if it was the Setting, characters, or plot, but it just didn’t work for me.
I wasn’t invested and I don’t think there was enough setup for the characters for me to become invested. It felt a little all over the place in regards to the plot and how that unfolded and almost likely were thrown into the middle of something without enough context.
The little posts from the anonymous site felt unusual and out of place, I don’t know why they were there in the first place we could have completely done without them.
I don’t understand the flashback element whatsoever, it was completely unnecessary. If you were gonna do it, those scenes should have been longer and had more value to the story.
The follow up books Is going to be a miss for me.

The Naturals

I did not finish this one. I used to watch Criminal Minds, and this is basically that for teenagers/young adults. I knew that going in, but for some reason, I didn’t think it would go so dark and deep into things. Especially emotionally walking into someone elses skin (creepy), and some pretty dark themes and content. It gave me creepy feels, so I decided to DNF.

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See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace